FONDECYT’s Initiation into Research grants: only two quantum information projects are approved and they are both from CEFOP-UdeC

* Doctors Gustavo Cañas and Esteban Sepúlveda obtained Fondecyt financing, which will continue the work that they started in their respective doctorates, among others.

Young researchers, Gustavo Cañas and Esteban Sepúlveda, described their adjudication from the FONDECYT’s Initiation into Research grants as an achievement for our Center. Why? This year, only two projects of quantum information received approval-those of Gustavo and Esteban-and in addition only five experimental physics projects were accepted, from the 275 in total. According to the young researchers, this reflects the quality of the research that is being done at CEFOP-UdeC and the capability of its work groups.

“What surprised me is that the only projects that exist in quantum information are from CEFOP-UdeC, and we were delighted with that. This win, if we can call it that, is the work of many people-all those who have helped us to develop these investigations. It is a team effort, which is reflected in the work of Esteban and my work, and, in short, it is a triumph for the Center,” Gustavo Canas said.

At the end of their respective doctoral degrees, both researchers decided to apply separately to the research grant for Initiation into Research (FONDECYT), whose results were announced a few days ago. “We needed to provide real capital to be able to continue our research; then we found the opportunity in CONICYT and decided to apply for this project,” said Gustavo Canas, who proposed in his application to develop three themes.

The research areas referred to by Dr. Cañas are the development of “processing experiments in quantum information in high dimensions using path encoding, utilizing the transverse momentum of the photon, to be able to encode information. The proposed experiments are contextual, and have been worked on by Dr. Adán Cabello,” but he also has proposed to work on dimensional witnesses protocols that allows you to know what is the minimum dimension of a quantum system, just by looking at some statistics in the experiment. “What I want is to know is: what is the minimum size with which I can describe a quantum system, finding that dimension and using it to make protocols,” the CEFOP-UdeC member explained.

Finally, it will address high dimensional quantum tomography. “It is one of the works in which I participated with Dr. Dardo Goyeneche. He proposed to do an experiment in the lab and we carried it out, then, based on that experience, we can focus on other tomography protocols.”

Meanwhile, Esteban Sepúlveda pointed out that in this grant project, which lasts three years, he has proposed one experiment per year. The first relates to the continuation of a work he did during his PhD, which is a study of spatial correlations that are present in twin photons; the second is, as he explained, “when one performs a measurement in quantum mechanics, there is a range of possible outcomes and the idea is that, through a true experimental scheme, one can get all this range of results at the same time.”

For the last year, Sepulveda proposes to carry out a diagram of secure quantum communications, but using higher dimensions. “Now, what is uniting the three projects is the use of two technologies: the first is a camera that we have, which has the sensitivity of individual photons, and the idea is to try to apply this advantage the camera has, which allows us to capture photons. And the second is, to use a device we’ve always used, which are spatial modulators, so that we might handle these photons.”